MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. Provocations by Ukrainian troops have aggravated the situation along the line of engagement in Donbass, the Donetsk News Agency said on Sunday, citing heads of a number of administration of a number of districts of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

"From 25 to 84 residential houses have been destroyed in the shelling by Ukrainian troops in the settlements of Novolaspa, Novaya Maryevka, Grigorovka, Tavricheskoye and Michurino located along the contact line. Eleven houses have been ruined in Staromareyvka, 22 houses - in Nikolayevka, and five houses - in Belokamenka," Sergei Ivanov, the head of the Telmanovsky district administration, said.

Head of the Yasinovatovsky district administration Yuri Korsar said twelve schools had been destroyed in shelling in his district.

The DPR defence ministry said earlier on Sunday the Ukrainian military had shelled populated areas on the DPR-controlled territory almost 60 times over the past twenty-four hours. "We registered 59 instances of shelling by the Ukrainian side in the past twenty-four hours," the Donetsk News Agency quoted the DPR defence ministry as saying. "The enemy continues using heavy armaments prohibited by the Minsk accords," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian military shelled the settlements of Novaya Maryevka, Sakhanka, Lozovoye, Spartak, Zhabichevo and Gorlovka. The largest number of shelling attacks was registered in the Shirokino community. The Oktyabrskaya coalmine, the Donetsk airport and the Volvo-Center were also shelled, the ministry said.

The ceasefire between the Ukrainian conflicting sides started from midnight on February 15. The ceasefire regime is stipulated in a package of measures for the implementation of the accords signed in Minsk on February 12.

The Lugansk and Donetsk regions proclaimed the establishment of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics after local referendums in May last year. The LPR and DPR later signed an agreement on uniting the regions into the Novorossiya Union of People’s Republics.